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OECD Reviews of Labour Market and Social Policies: Serbia 2008

A Labour Market in Transition

To catch up with more advanced economies, Serbia urgently needs to improve the functioning of its labour market. This report reviews labour market trends and the principle challenges to labour market policy, making a series of recommendations.

Despite many reforms, new business growth until now has been far too slow to compensate for job losses elsewhere. Recent reforms of labour law should be followed up by further efforts to improve the climate for business and productive work. Labour regulations must be flexible, but they should also be enforced more consistently. For all this to happen, it is essential that an effective social dialogue can take place and that it encompasses expanding and declining segments of the labour market.

Rights and Risks

Labour Market Challenges in a post-Sel-Managed Economy

With the dissolution of Socialist Yugoslavia, social ownership and self-management of enterprises came to an end as well, leaving only some anomalous remnants. Research about this type of “market socialism” declined at the same time. Some studies of the transition in Yugoslav successor states have considered their institutional path-dependency, especially when it comes to privatisation and labour market performance. This path-dependency has weakened with the passage of time, if it ever existed. But it can still be expected to play some role in countries like Serbia, where the transition has been delayed.